In the era of technology sophistication, is there any solution that can help government organizations administer fair and efficient government service delivery? Governments from both developing and developed countries are struggling with transparency, efficiency, and accountability to deliver public services to citizens. Corruption in different levels of the distribution process, lack of accurate identity documents, and fraudulent activity hampers smoothly run government public service facilities. In this article we are going to demonstrate how the use biometrics for citizen identification is promising to increase both efficiency and transparency for public service benefit distribution and prevent government corruption and citizen identity theft.<\/p>\n
Biometrics are automated methods of recognizing someone through their biological characteristics and traits such as fingerprints, finger vein and palm vein patterns, iris, and voice recognition. Biometric characteristics are unique for every individual, difficult to forge and because of the high individual identification accuracy that biometrics offers governments are using this technology more frequently in law enforcement agencies such as police, investigation departments, and forensic departments to solve critical identification problems. It is now proven that biometrics can provide the most accurate identification verification results and available in different forms for both governments and enterprises.<\/p>\n
Global spending on biometrics for government programs is predominantly driven by numerous e-passport, national identity card programs, voter registration, border control, and law enforcement identity initiatives with Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)<\/a><\/strong> . Utilizing a range of biometric identification technologies to protect citizen rights and control benefit distribution, here are major areas where government can use biometrics to identify people and provide more equitable distribution of governmental services:<\/p>\n Biometric National ID:<\/strong> Lack of a proper citizen identification system creates difficulties for governments to equitably plan and distribute public services and facilities. Many countries are making a national ID card mandatory for eligible citizens over traditional paper ID cards which are not safe enough to protect identity theft, forgery, duplicities, and fraudulent claims. Biometric enabled smart national identification cards can secure a citizen\u2019s identity. Moreover, by deploying a biometric national identification card and having one central biometric identification database, the ID card can be leveraged for several different purposes to efficiently and fairly deliver government services and can help save the costs of developing and issuing different identification cards for different programs.<\/p>\n Biometric Voter Registration (BVR): Biometric voter registration systems<\/a><\/strong> are another form of identity management initiatives for governments to better understand the identities of their citizens. The primary purpose of BVR programs is to ensure fair and credible election that supports the right of people to elect free governments, a key component to support legitimate democracies. Old-fashioned voter registration systems are very problematic and suffer from many problems such as counterfeiting, forgery, duplicate registrations, ghost voting (voting with fake identity), zombie voting (voting with a dead person\u2019s identity). A secure and accurate system of biometric voter identification can help overcome those unwanted situations. Moreover, BVR systems can help governments to identify eligible citizens to efficiently deliver government services.<\/p>\n ePassport:<\/strong> Biometric enabled ePassport distribution is another form of identity documents that governments can use to identify citizens. ePassport biometric identification systems can help governments to prevent duplicities, forgery, and fraudulent activities. Therefore, implementing a biometric ePassport program empowers governments to identify people accurately, even those citizens living abroad who may also have access to public services.<\/p>\n Border Control:<\/strong> Using a biometric identification system for border control to strengthen security is another tactic that enables countries to effectively and efficiently track both citizens and travelers. Countries who are struggling to manage refugee identity problems for benefit distribution can utilize the benefits of using biometrics for border control<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n